@JAN you're right, but I was not even talking about who learns English but who speaks it as a first language. Although I think Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in the world.
Anyway, it's taking away from what Rice posted which was far more interesting than this. I have often wondered why English speakers tend to find it harder to learn another language.
Display MoreI just read an article about the languages easiest for English speakers to learn. Spanish was one of them, because of the shared Latin roots, similar word order in sentence structure, and cultural familiarity with many words, due to Spanish being the most spoken language in the world.
The other three surprised me: Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian.
Dutch, because of the shared Germanic roots, the numerous cognates, and grammar plus audible tones that both have more in common with English than with German.
Swedish, also because of its Germanic roots and its many cognates, and its “non-fussy” word order.
Norwegian was the big surprise to me. Besides the shared Germanic roots and lots of cognates, the language has fewer words than most languages. But the best part is that there is only one verb tense! Imagine! If Spanish had only one tense, I would have been rattling on, years ago!
In my experience, people from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands speak the best English, so perhaps it also goes the other way.
By the way, Spanish is not the most spoken language in the world, not even close. In fact, I think there may be more English speakers.
UK Man, Rice, how do you manage in situations when you are out on your own?
